Dear Dreams – Page 186

First Day of GESSVBall Chalet

[Saturday, 30 December, 2006]

Right after work at Kovan, I searched through my map for bus 72 after being “fooled” by the cake shop assistants that I could board it just outside the MRT station. It was a long way down to Tampiness Road and finally after a big mosque, I found the exact bus-stop. I found the route so familiar until I realised I had driven through them before but this bus 72 was travelling slower than my 3-tonner (maximum speed of 50km/h); even the semen carrier (maximum speed of 40km/h) had overtaken the bus easily at the clear and straight road.

After the long journey to the Tampiness interchange, I bought some food at the crowded food court and went off to wait for bus 29 at the interchange. The bus journey was as long as half an hour and eventually I followed through my map again and alighted at the first bus-stop at Netheravon Road. I called Bianhong and he told me all of them were at Pasir Ris.

Waiting at the first stop at Netheravon Road alone where the red ant crawled onto my hand and dropped into my dinner.

A sudden dejection filled my entire body. The sweat that I lost throughout the rushing journey proved me silly. I wondered why none of them would at least send me an SMS before they left the place for it was basic courtesy that I had spoken over phone to Bianhong and Junrong that I was on the way there already. I felt so left out and I knew my inexistence would definitely not matter much to anyone of them.

Alone, I sat on the bus-stop’s bench and took out my dinner but realising it could never fill my famished mind. Numerous bus 29 passed by to mock at me, together with passers-by who looked so amazed that I was all alone in the darkness. At least, the ants kept me occupied. Minutes passed by with strangers asking me for directions and finally I decided I should use the time wisely to walk around instead of feeding the mosquitoes and finally I got to the chalet and waited outside.

One plus hour upon my arrival, the junior guys were back in their bicycles. There was nothing much I could do when I realised the guys knew nothing about my earlier call to inform them I was on the way already.

At the chalet finally.

I was resting upstairs when Bianhong came in to give me a fright. I went down with him later and started to tease Pamela who was the last in the convoy on their returning trip. It was boring at first until they decided to go out for supper. Since they did not get an extra bicycle for me, Junrong had to become Pamela’s chauffer.

We went to Changi Village’s hawker centre and since I had my dinner very late, I did not order anything. I wanted to volunteer to look after the bicycles at outside so that the rest of them could just enjoy their supper peacefully but Bianhong dragged me inside. So, Bianhong and I were sitting nearest to the bicycle and later had a little crap with the drinks stall auntie.

Outfield.

Huimin and Junrong.

Bianhong looking at Fenghui and Pamela.

Junrong riding Pamela.

Through the night.

Huimin.

The honeymoon continued.

Fixing the bicycle.

After that, we started cycling through the Changi Beach Park and then along the Changi Coast Road where Shujian caused Khong Wee’s fall.

Spectacle Frames and Dinner

[Friday, 29 December, 2006]

My elder brother found his old spectacle that had a broken frame. He wanted to go to Chinatown for dinner and fix it on the way. Since my spare spectacle was damaged by one of the Clementi ITE guys and could not be fixed, I agreed to put aside my stuff for the night.

My mum brought us to the optical shop at the second level, which the owner offered very nice service to my younger brother weeks ago. However, the shop did not sell the frame size of my elder brother’s spectacle and I gave a sigh of relief; we had been regular customers at the optical shop at People’s Park Centre for more than ten years and it was quite out of point to change shop when their services and prices were so good.

Hence, we took bus 145 to People’s Park Centre. We saw one of the old staffs who quitted months ago and she told us she had changed her mind. Everyone was as busy as usual and one of the customers praised the boss, Mr Koh, so much that his face turned red.

My brother got his new frame easily. As for mine, they could not fix it back and I had to settle for a new one as well. I stated clearly that I wanted a cheap plastic frame for that old spectacle was used for playing volleyball purpose and needed not be stylish. In the end, the girl picked one frame that was priced at $120 and I was taken aback. However, my mum opened her mouth again and the nice boss kindly priced both spectacle frames at $20 each. However, since my brother claimed that he was broke, I had to foot the bill.

We went to the renovated hawker centre below OG for dinner. We had the famous “Liang Dou Fu” at $3 each bowl. The taste was okay but the plain looking soup was fantastic. My mum ordered some snacks to add to the dinner as well.

The drinks stall auntie approached us and when I asked her to introduce some drinks, she listed “ma ti”, “soya bean” and “lime juice” but she claimed that guys did not like the latter, which I ordered. Mingfa knew well how much I liked lime juice but due to the fact that I had gastric problem, I did not take it for quite long already.

My younger brother finally reached the place but he had his dinner somewhere else already. Then, we rushed off home to catch the 9pm channel 8 show. We took a cab outside the Indian temple and my mum knocked her head while boarding. The fare was $2.80 and that showed how short the distance was.

First Visit to Lorong Ah Soo

[Saturday, 30 December, 2006]

I was occupied in the morning as I failed to wake up as early as planned to slowly pack my stuff for the chalet. At the same time, I needed to inform Zhirong, Bianhong and Alvin Cheong about the chalet’s cycling plan that would be executed on the first night. There was also a minor change to plan for my work and eventually I did not leave my house at the intended time.

I took bus 80 towards Hougang and followed through the route using my map. Halfway, I suddenly lost track after Geylang Road as the changes of pages was placed in different directions.

Before I arrived, Mingfa called me and told me he had forgotten to draw money from ATM before taking the cab. Later on, he gave around two more calls while I was rushing to find my way there before his cab arrived. Kelly was already there since morning to entertain the valuer.

Front.

Living room.

Kitchen.

Master bedroom.

Second room.

Room nearer to main door.

The four of us, including Meijun, went up to block 142. Kelly and Mingfa went over to block 129 after a while and soon, the first client, Mr Net Ng, came and I went down to fetch him. He was quite weird but friendly and he kept on emphasizing that he was a businessman. However, he could not accept the unique shape of the house. Later on, other viewers came and I was quite lost out of a sudden. Sadly, my performance was not good enough.

There were around five groups of viewers in total and luckily Kelly came over to help settle everything. When everyone had left, she was busy settling her own personal stuff on the phone and soon, an agent called Linda called her and announced that her client wanted to take that flat.

It was a good news but we realised none of us had the OTP forms. I always thought Kelly had them inside her bike’s container but she had removed them due to the rain. Even though Linda had the OTP forms, Kelly still had to go back to her house to retrieve some documents.

Suddenly, one direct buyer, Mr Phua and his family members, dropped by and both Mingfa and I were lost. Mingfa brought him over to block 129 and later on, we realised he was very keen on block 142.

At the end of the day, we managed to get Jenny down to sign the documents since block 142 belonged to her. I realised Linda was a new agent, though more experienced. I was not sure why bigger company like hers was taking more commission and like what she claimed, they did not even have projects like mine.

In the end, all of us went to the void deck to finish up all the documents and had a little talk without realising it was around 6pm already. Jenny then drove Meijun, Mingfa and I to Kovan MRT and after some searching, we found the ATM and Mingfa returned me the money.

Paper Work at Office

[Thursday, 28 December, 2006]

Once again, when I planned to go to the office earlier to do some research before meeting Kelly, I could not wake up in time. Bus 167 was kind to me and I managed to get there around half an hour earlier to finish up the shading of the OTP forms for the Haig Road flat.

After Kelly arrived, she was busy as usual and Francis called me and told me he was busy as well. I needed to buy some cheques from him and he wanted to pass the keys of a Lorong Ah Soo flat to me as well. However, I saw James inside the office and approached him instead. In fact, this was the first time I received help from James. He was supposed to guide me all along as the manager of the team but I supposed like what Francis said, he was going to retire soon.

Just as I was happily receiving the cheque from James, Kelly reminded him of the flat and I realised I should not have cancelled the meeting with Francis so that I could retrieve the keys. The administration work was hectic and after that, Kelly rushed off to find Francis to get the keys.

I stayed inside the office to wait for Kelly while I tried to figure out how to do the commission form. Regina was running about and whenever she got back to the receptionist counter, we chatted. Then, I began crapping and claiming that I was the freest agent in the company. Later on, she asked me to help her with stapling a stack of papers and I gladly agreed to help her. Suddenly, she gave me another stack of papers but luckily that was the last one. After Kelly called me, Regina asked for my ringtone. Then, she also offered me packet drinks and sweet.

I supposed I could easily make friends with receptionists.

About Online User Counter

If you have been wondering about how online user counters work, I would share my five cents worth of knowledge.

It detects the number of users online by tracking their IP addresses. Each IP address will be stored for an amount of time, unless the visitor triggers the script again and the counter restarts. At the same time, the script will count for the number of IP addresses stored to determine the number of users “online”.

A problem arouses when multiple IP addresses are detected from a visitor and the number of count exceeds the correct amount. This is the reason why a few months ago, sometimes you can see the number of my website’s online visitors reaching more than twenty.

For most free online scripts hosted by free service providers, they store each visiting IP address for fifteen minutes; however, in order to save bandwidth, they do not provide auto refreshing. A regular visitor will not stay in a blog for more than five minutes and thus the storing of IP addresses for fifteen minutes will be very inaccurate, on the other hand, will be very flattering for the owner.

The greatest problem about free service providers is that when their bandwidth has reached the limit or their server is down, the browser will take some time to try and load the script before it gives up, such that, visitors might think it is the problem with your website and give up waiting.

In order to solve the problems of inaccuracy, especially for the multiple IP addresses problem, I have implemented a free online PHP script in my webhost, which is adjustable. Since I have limited each storing of IP address to be only five seconds and with its auto-refresh function, the inaccuracy counted by time is at most five seconds.

For my website, it is displayed as “X readers online”.

Sold My First Flat

[Wednesday, 27 December, 2006]

I was behaving quite like a zombie in the morning for the lack of sleep and disappointment of the unsold flat, which could have been sold a week ago.

I was actually quite excited for the arrival of the valuer and Kelly had taught me more things this morning. The valuer was a girl who looked quite young and pleasant. She came with papers to note down things and later, took out a camera to take photos. I thought she had a nice job for she got to travel more than me to look at houses, and also able to practise photography.

Rahman was late for a while and he brought down the couple and their son. My instinct was right this time that the buyers were willing to buy the flat. I supposed it was partly due to the fact that they were urgently looking for a new house and Rahman’s team worked so swiftly that they did not want to hold on to any client. Of course, the buyers, Mr Low and his wife were very easygoing people.

We went down to the stone table but it was too windy. Later on, Rahman finally got his name card for both Kelly and I. We moved to the community centre. I was surprised to see Mr Low having very long name and Kelly told me he was a Chinese who had converted to Muslim. I was very impressed with him for it must have taken him a lot of sacrifice to be with his gorgeous wife.

We finally got the paper work done with Kelly’s help. Actually, Rahman was handling the JTC resale flat for the first time as well. Even though the flat was finally sold, I knew well I did not make much from the little commission; it was so pathetic for I had made almost ten trips down and the travel fee and time wasted was enormous. The greatest worry was how I was going to answer to Francis when Kelly did not want anyone else to know that she was helping us. And also, since the case was closed after so much helps from Kelly, I did not feel proud.

After reaching home, I was dead beat from the lack of sleep. I was also quite disappointed that Vivi was actually out with another guy, her senior in school, to catch a movie instead of accompanying me. That guy insisted her to date with him out of so many girls in Singapore but her mum had ordered home in the midst of the romantic movie. Seeing her nick in MSN was a sickening thing when she was apologising so much to him.

I did not doubt her loyalty but her naiveness that people always took it for granted. The day sucked to the maximum and I was getting so weary perhaps due to the numerous travelling in the bad weather that I dozed off many times.

It was during evening, she called me while she was going for tuition and she told me she had dinner with the same guy who insisted it in order to forgive her for her mum forced her home earlier. Maybe some people would think she was so lovely to repay her mum’s debt but I only cared about how weird it was for a guy to ask so much from an attached girl.

Kelly had arranged to meet me at 9pm for Mr. Low wanted to pay for the exercise fee immediately so as to proceed with the flat faster. It was a bad timing for I was going to miss my favourite channel 8 show. Weirdly, my mum had not returned home with my dinner at such late hour as she was kind of forced to join a religious gathering with great food; I thought those people were very hypocrite to force people into their believe.

I was wearing very causally as I thought I had to just pass her the document. Then, she was late for she was doing her holy task of helping Jenny with some stuff. Suddenly, she called me and asked me to go down to McPherson Road and I was so stunned. The exact location was Pipit Road which I had not heard before. There were a few persons in the queue but they were all not in the same way as the cab driver who came next.

I got into it and soon, started chatting with the uncle. He thought I was from China for I was speaking in Chinese all along. Later on, he introduced me to a china website where he got many cheap China goods. He told me that he was working nearly twenty years in the sales line before switching job. It was a good experience to be his customer and partly thanks to Kelly that I was getting noisier, but of course still not even half of my past standard.

I thought my job was to pass Kelly the documents but she brought me up to Mr Low’s house at block 54. I was very embarrassed for wearing shorts and the NP t-shirt. Then, Kelly got me to fill in the forms and she guided me by the side. However, I did not understand the whole procedure still.

After everything was settled, we went down to the void deck to settle the payment. I returned her the $172.50 from Mr Low for the valuation fee and she insisted me to take $25 from her as cab fare. From then, I deducted that she would never take the commission from Mingfa and I as we planned to divide the small amount between the three of us. She had put me to so much shame for she was helping us so much that she was wasting so much of her time and money.

It was pouring heavily still and we sat there to discuss over how to talk to Francis. I reminded her that it was obvious someone had been helping us and she finally agreed to let Francis know about it. Francis was praising Mingfa and me for doing the valuation despite the risk that we would be wasting the money if there was no buyer, which was different from what he said to me in the afternoon.

At this point of time I was quite lost. The society seemed so dark that no one was completely trustable. From Kelly, I knew many things about our team for she was a great observer. So far, I had not seen anyone as hardworking as her and I really wished to learn more from her in a way such that Francis would not be angry in any way. It was pretty obvious that Mingfa and I were neglected somehow and we had no choice but to accept Kelly’s kind help, which had benefited us so much to start off into the field.

She insisted to see me into the cab before she rode home in her bike.

Back to Square – View House

[Tuesday, 26 December, 2006]

This morning I woke up with disappointment but I was actually quite expecting it that Andrew and Jessica did not want the Haig Road flat. The first thing I did after opening my eyes was to check the phone and I was totally dejected.

My holiday mood turned gloomy and I knew clearly I had to redo everything again – showing of clients to the flat. Kelly acted immediately to my forwarded message and she messaged all the numbers of agents in the newspaper who were holding flats to that area so that the agents could bring their clients who were interested in that area over for a look.

I got calls and finally, someone called Hanna was interested but she was quite furious over the commission of the flat. By then, I realised most agents in the market did not know about the JTC resale flats, which was not as simple as what Francis had said. However, she gave me a second call and confirmed about the viewing and she gave me her associate’s number, who would be bringing the clients down.

I did not reject the appointment which was at 8.30pm on the same day because I knew hard work would pay. However, I was already saturated in moodiness.

Just as I left my house, Mingfa told me he would not be going down since it was pouring heavily and he lived so far away; I was very fine with it for I had told him earlier about this plan that I would go down alone. So, I went back to the same place to board the bus 10 and proceeded with the boring trip once again.

Front view at night

Back view at night

As I waited on alone at the flat, Kelly called and said she was not coming anymore due to the heavy rain. It was a blessing actually for not taking up her time. Since the valuer would be going down the next day, she would collect the keys from me in the morning.

I was surprised when another number appeared in my phone instead. I realised this team consisted three or more people and the final member sent over was Rahman. He appeared quite “beng” and did not even carry his name card along, but later, I realised he was very friendly.

The clients were a Muslim couple and the lady was quite gorgeous. In fact, both of them were very nice people. They were very interested in the house but had to see to their son’s liking. Then, Rahman arranged another appointment the next day with me.

I was in fact planning to work at Bianhong’s place to replenish my wallet but I had to give up the deal.

It was nearly 9pm and the channel 8 show, 百万宝, was beginning soon and I actually thought of going to the auntie next door’s house to watch it but was too shy to place the simple request which she would certainly accept. It was still raining and as I got down, Kelly asked me to call another agent to arrange an appointment. Rahman had also called me to urge me to talk to the valuer to push the value of the house up. I was delayed for around fifteen minutes at the lobby for I did not have enough hands to hold my file, my phone and the umbrella.

I reached home at nearly 10pm and got even more moody for missing the show.

The Fragile Internet

A respectable person, whom I could not remember, had told me before that the internet was so solid built that even an atomic bomb could not destroy it. This was quite true for the network was laid all over the world, interconnecting each other, that there were always multiple routes for the signals to be travelled; but I always reserved my doubts.

I was totally amazed when the MSN was down that was caused by the earthquake in Taiwan and I had never thought of the impact could be so big. There was no connection to several websites and I almost thought Max-Online was giving the problems.

There were lesser people coming online and blogs were not updated. Reports showed that more earthquakes would continue to strike Taiwan and I was not sure what other problems would it cost.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Natural Disasters, please do not take away our privilege of using the internet!

After all, I get to learn that the laying of physical network is magnificent work that it will take at least three months to fully stabilize the network. Whereas, ships are transporting diver cable men to repair all the damages, which is so cool.

Hopefully those lamers in the internet will learn to appreciate internet and stop causing annoyance to others. If you cannot contribute, at least do not destroy.

Dinner with Gil, Chua and Rehan

[Monday, 25 December, 2006]

Chua had initiated an outing the day before. He had flooded my phone with messages and I was more than happier to have someone organising a simple gathering. He managed to get Gilbert and Rehan who were so keen to keep in contacts.

Gilberto at the stairs at Cityhall MRT

Gilbert reached Cityhall the earliest after going out with his friends and I joined him as soon as possible after recovering from hangover. Both of us walked around Raffles City while waiting for the two of them. Finally, Chua called Gilbert and arranged to meet at Suntec City’s Convention Centre. Even though Gilbert had clearly told him I was right besides Gilbert, he called me after finishing talking with Gilbert. Chua was indeed interesting.

Yellow flowers

Yellow flowers again

Pink

Orange

White

Yellow

Gilbert and I took the main road instead of using Citylink which he claimed it was faster. Along the road towards Suntec City, we saw many beautiful flowers and took photos. We finally met up with Chua and Rehan after waiting for a while. We went to the food court (pathetic for a gathering but too bad we were not rich except Rehan) which was crowded and decided to go to MacDonald’s instead.

Gilbert had his special order again with Fantastic burger and a cake from McCafe, which made him the longest queuing customer. Scenery was nice for at the far corner there was a sweet girl with two foreigners. Rehan updated us about camp and both Gilbert and I were quite excited that our prediction had come true though it was sad.

I was not sure what was wrong with Shep that she still failed to gain popularity of her subordinates, which was a big tragedy to me. Ben seemed to be at loggerhead with a new sergeant and that was quite expected with his frankness. AVA was going down the drain and the regulars, including all the scholars, had failed to see the problems with the management. At least, I was sure everyone knew clearly people at my times were actually doing our jobs and some people like me were actually doing things out of our job scopes.

Chua, Rehan, Me

Rehan’s car

We went to the Adidas shop and Chua bought his bag. Then, we accompanied Rehan to the car park and it was the first time I ever stepped deep inside. It was divided into colours with alphabets and was really huge.

After Rehan left, we went to G2000 shop and I bought a pant for near thirty bucks after a forty percent discount. Then, we went to search for Chua’s ear piece and finally we went back to the food court for Chua claimed that he was hungry again. He bought a bowl of noodle and then Gilbert got a bowl of soup as expected. Chua insisted to treat me to a drink with the reason that he had not treated me for very long. Anyway, I was really amazed at the prices for almost every drink cost $1.50 except for my small cup of tea, which was $1.

Gilberto

Chua

We sat down at the food court for quite some time. Then, we started asking questions and Chua was really so interesting.

We left for home at around 10pm and I took bus 196 at Nicoll Highway.

Santa on Bicycle

[Monday, 25 December, 2006]

It was Christmas Day finally and I was preparing to deliver the present over to Vivi when she sounded very sleepy. I tried to keep her awake but instead, I lost a lot of time doing that, which was a mistake. I had not cycled for so long since after my operation and this time with the new tyres, I used less strength than before to do the same amount of job.

It was a challenge against myself. I reached her place near 1am and gave her more than thirty calls which she did not pick up. I got so disappointed because usually her friends could easily wake her up when they wanted to chat with her over the phone. Standing at the corridor, I had so much doubt that I could take good care of her.

I made the wasted trip there and I was not sure how my mum felt about it. At least I had proven that my left leg was capable of paddling though it might still not be able to withstand jumping. It was quite an unlucky morning for when I got to Yan Kit Road, the roti prata was sold out. I decided to go home empty-handed and the chain came off. For the first time I fixed it back but got my hands so dirty.

It was a boring day ahead. She had organised a party at her house since her parents did not allow her to go out to celebrate. I seriously did not understand what grudges her parents bear with me but from what she told me, I could not go even though I was not very interested as well.

It was till night time when I decided to deliver her present over, her friends were leaving. Since she told me her dad was sending them to the MRT station, I decided to stop by Outram Park MRT station. It was raining but I decided to proceed on. After waiting for quite some time, I called her to check for her location and realised her dad was sending her friends to Woodlands MRT instead. In the rain, I cycled straight to her house and luckily her brother came to the living room and I quietly caught his attention to pass him the present without letting her mum know.

After that, her brother and I started to bluff her that the present was given by her brother and she believed it. Since the day before she had received some chocolate with “I love you” label inside, she insisted that present was from me. No matter how I explained and swear that I was not so stupid to make her grow fat, she refused to believe me.

In the end, I realised her group of friends who went to her house was actually friends introduced by a smoker cum playboy who tried to break us months ago. The disappointment was so heartbreaking. Then, she was busy entertaining that playboy for she did not invite him over due to a conflict between him and another guy.

Alas, I concluded that she was so naïve to easily believe other people and yet she always had doubts in me. Another disappointment was that she would never ever keep her promise to stay away from people whom I disliked.